(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to artificial hair pieces including means connected with the hair piece for securing the hair piece to the wearer's natural hair.
(2) Discussion of the Prior Art
Concern over personal appearance is a virtually universal trait of humans with the style and appearance of hair being an especially important aspect of this concern. Artificial hair pieces have, accordingly, become extremely popular not only to aid those interested in the capacity to change the appearance of their hair, but also to serve as a substitute for hair which may have been lost due to baldness. Unfortunately, a truly effective and convenient technique for attaching hair or hair pieces has not been disclosed in spite of great efforts to satisfy the demand therefor. Such efforts have resulted in exotic techniques including hair transplants and surgically implanted hair piece anchors, but these costly and inconvenient solutions are obviously not the answer for most individuals.
On the more practical side, it has been proposed to attach a hair piece by utilizing existing natural hair to anchor the artificial hair by first attaching the artificial hair to a comb-like structure such as illustrated in French Pat. No. 421,964 and U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,346,718; 1,390,778 and 1,714,359. The tangs of such comb structures can thus be used to frictionally engage the existing natural hair of the wearer to anchor the hair piece in place. As convenient as such structure may be, this approach still suffers from some disadvantages. For example, the artificial hair roots disclosed in the above cited prior art are connected to the comb structure adjacent the base of the comb tangs thus concentrating the hair roots along the base of the comb. As a result, any forces generated either by the weight of the artificial hair itself or by outside forces applied to the strands of artificial hair will cause a net force on the comb tending to pull the tangs of the comb free from the existing natural hair by rotating the comb about a pivot point formed by the free ends of the comb tangs. The French patent (421,964) alleviates this problem to some degree by attaching some hair roots to the base portions of each tang as well as to the base portion of the comb structure interconnecting the comb tangs. However, the hair roots are still concentrated near the base portion of the comb resulting in a concentration of those forces which would tend to pull the hair piece free from the natural hair with which the comb is anchored. Moreover, the French patent discloses attachment of clumps of artificial hair roots to the comb structure by preforming apertures in the comb followed by the step of securing the hair roots in the preformed apertures. This approach for mounting individual hair roots is tedious and costly and unduly weakens the comb tangs.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,628,546 discloses a hair attaching structure wherein the roots of the artificial hair is attached along an undulating wire-like frame. In the device disclosed by this patent, natural hair engaging tangs are arranged generally perpendicularly with respect to the orientation of the straight sections of the undulating wire frame, thus making it extremely difficult for the straight sections of the undulating wire frame to guide natural hair into the space between the straight sections so as to frictionally engage the natural hair. No satisfactory solution has thus been devised to form a particularly effective structure for conveniently attaching a hair piece to existing natural hair.